At Jimmy Kimmel’s annual monologue to advertisers at Disney’s recent upfront presentation, the ABC late-night host offered sympathy to his ousted CBS cohort Stephen Colbert.
“First, it’s bad enough to lose your job,” Kimmel said. “Imagine getting replaced by the owner of the Weather Channel.”
Byron Allen, the media mogul whose holdings do include the Weather Channel, laughed when the gag was repeated to him during a recent phone conversation. “I like Jimmy Kimmel a lot,” he said.
Allen, never lacking in self-confidence, can afford to roll with the jokes. Episodes of his 20-year-old syndicated program “Comics Unleashed,” a half-hour show featuring mostly lesser-known stand-ups sharing routines and stories, are replacing “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS in the 11:35 p.m. time period starting Friday.
While it’s a triumph for Allen, 65, it’s also a sign of how the traditional late-night talk show — one of television’s most culturally influential formats — may no longer be sustainable in the era of streaming TV.
CBS said last year it canceled Colbert because it lost $40 million a year as the late-night viewing habit among audiences has eroded in the streaming era. Many in the TV industry are skeptical of the claim, believing Skydance Media wanted to silence the relentless Trump-bashing host in order to clear the government regulatory path for its acquisition of network parent Paramount. (The FCC’s approval of the deal came days after the cancellation was announced.)
Cedric the Entertainer, left, with Byron Allen on the set of “Comics Unleashed.”
(Allen Media Group)
But no one who has worked in late-night television in recent years can dispute how financial challenges are clouding the format’s future. Polished after-hours programs with a live audience, large teams of writers and producers and high-priced hosts are fighting off obsolescence as traditional TV audiences get smaller and ad revenues shrink. While CBS is the first to act, other networks have thought about getting out of the business altogether.
Since 2022, “The Late Show” lost 20% of its audience in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49 age group, according to Nielsen data. Ad spending on all late-night television shows hit $209 million in 2025, down from $519.7 million in 2017, according to data from Guideline.
“Nothing is forever, especially in television,” said former network executive Ted Harbert, who oversaw the launches of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers” at NBC. “Digital tech is killing late night.”
The hosts of the programs and their funniest bits are arguably seen by more people than ever before thanks to clips replayed on social media platforms. But the revenue generated by digital viewing doesn’t approach what the networks get for audiences watching live on TV.
Over the last 10 years, late-night shows flocked to YouTube as a way to be a part of the national conversation and bring attention to the shows. Harbert believes the notion that the clips alone — which may feature a funny bit or a snapshot of a conversation with a guest — would help lure viewers to traditional TV was folly.
“The shows cannibalized themselves by making their show available in snack-size clips after the network airing,” he said. “And viewers obviously would rather watch a couple of five-minute clips than a whole show.”
Late-night shows were once among the most profitable programs on TV because of their ability to reach viewers in the 18-to-34 age group that attract premium prices for commercial time. But the same demographic was the first to gravitate to streaming platforms and abandon traditional TV which thrives on appointment viewing.
Daniel Kellison, a former producer for “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The Late Show with David Letterman,” noted that Kimmel — who has also been targeted by the Trump administration for his harsh barbs — has seen his TV ratings increase this year.
But the overall trend for the time period is still down. While Kellison believes Colbert’s cancellation is an effort by CBS to appease Trump, he agrees that the genre needs to evolve and adapt to the changing media landscape.
“There’s always going to be an audience for conversation around politics and life and these sort of shows will exist in different formats and I think it’s incumbent upon people to figure out how to present them,” he said.
CBS executives have said they want to develop a new network show in the late-night time period. But for the next year it will lease the slot to Allen. His company Allen Media Group pays CBS for the time, covers the cost of production and sells the advertising. He is also the host. The deal will erase whatever losses the network experienced in that TV block.
“Comics Unleashed” has been running in the 12:35 a.m. hour since CBS canceled “After Midnight” last year. When that show moves to the earlier time slot, it will be replaced by another Allen program, “Funny You Should Ask,” a comic quiz show hosted by John Kelley.
Allen said he has great respect for the late-night TV tradition. His mother was a tour guide at NBC in Burbank and he was able to hang out on the studio lot to watch Johnny Carson tape “Tonight.” Allen would get advice from Carson, whom he calls his hero and mentor, and eventually got a shot at doing stand-up on “Tonight” when he was 18 years old.
Allen even asked CBS to move the start date of “Comics Unleashed” to May 22 because it is the anniversary of Carson’s final show in 1992. But his sentimentality ends when it comes to the economics of programming in that time slot.
“We will be in profit,” Allen said of “Comics Unleashed,” which according to Nielsen has seen its audience grow in the 12:35 a.m. time slot by 26% since October.
Kimmel has accused CBS of dumping Colbert for “Comics Unleashed” because Allen’s show doesn’t partake in political humor that could alienate the White House as Skydance moves to close its next acquisition: Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I feel like CBS is turning 11:35 p.m. into a ‘least’ time slot,” Kimmel said at the Disney presentation. “Least as in least likely to offend the president with the rerun of ‘Comics Unleashed’ from 2007 featuring Paula Poundstone and Andy Dick.”
Poundstone and Dick are not among the 1,000 comedians who have appeared on “Comics Unleashed” over the years, many of whom went on to become stars. But not having the program dabble in political humor is a business decision.
The guests stick to storytelling and slice-of-life material that doesn’t date, which is why the episodes can attract an audience years after being taped. They don’t plug books, movies, concerts or any other elements that would be dated by future airings.
“Twenty years ago when we shot our first episode I said ‘we’re making it ‘I Love Lucy,’” Allen said. “I want these shows to be funny today and 20 years from today.”
Allen said his company will produce 130 new episodes of “Comics Unleashed” for the 2026-27 TV season.
But the reason the current set of late-night hosts leaned into politics so heavily in recent years is because it works.
When Colbert took over “The Late Show” from Letterman in 2015, the program’s ratings sputtered as the audience did not really know Colbert outside of the satirical figure he played on Comedy Central with his show “The Colbert Report.”
The night Trump scored his surprising win in the 2016 presidential race against Hillary Clinton, Kelly Kahl, then an executive vice president of CBS Entertainment, sent a text to Chris Licht, then executive producer of “The Late Show,” telling him it was “the best thing to happen to the show.”
Colbert found his voice on the program, which rose to No. 1 in the ratings and has been there ever since.